Liu Xiaobo 'is dying', says Shenyang hospital

The hospital in Shenyang which is treating Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo said on Wednesday that he is suffering respiratory failure and “is dying”.

A statement said his family members had rejected the hospital’s request to be allowed to give Liu a tracheostomy.

The 61-year-old – who has been in detention since 2008 over his political activities – has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.

Earlier on Wednesday, the hospital said Liu was still suffering from multiple organ failure and septic shock.

Mainland authorities allowed two foreign doctors to visit Liu last weekend, but have so far rejected calls to let him seek treatment overseas. The authorities said Liu is too weak to travel, but the two visiting doctors disputed that claim.

Wednesday’s developments raise the grim prospect that Liu could die in custody. If that happens, Liu could become the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who passed away in a hospital while held by the Nazis in 1938.